NCIS: Los Angeles is a prime time television drama that elegantly mixes a procedural crime drama with a military drama. This highlights one of the very rare occasions where a television show succeeds, in spite of the fact that it is a spin-off of another show, coming from the original NCIS. To make that even more amazing is that fact that the original NCIS is actually a spin-off of another military crime drama JAG. All of these shows originally aired, or still air, on CBS and can be found in reruns.

NCIS: Los Angeles was first introduced during a two part episode of NCIS called ‘Legend’. This caused the working title to be NCIS: Legend; though NCIS: OSP (Office of Special Projects) and NCIS: Undercover were both considered. This was also the same way NCIS was first introduced to viewers of JAG originally.

The story revolves around a team of Office of Special Project officers working in Los Angeles. G. Callen, played by Chris O’Donnell, has undercover skills that are known throughout the police force. Special Agent Sam Hanna, played by rapper/actor LL Cool J, is a former Navy SEAL who is fluent in Arabic and an expert on Middle Eastern Culture. Eric Christian Olsen (Not Another Teen Movie), plays the liaison to the Los Angeles Police Department for the OSP team members. Hetty Lange (Linda Hunt) replaces Lara Macy (Louise Lombard) as the team’s operation manager while Nate Gets, played by Peter Cambor, is the OSP team’s operation psychologist.